MP is a 16 year old girl who is being discharged home on clozapine (amongst other medications). Due to the high risk of clozapine causing agranulocytosis, lab monitoring must be done in the community regularly. MP’s parents expressed concern with how this will be done in the community. In order to ensure continuity of care, I called MP’s pharmacy and ensured they had the brand of clozapine that she was receiving in hospital (as clozapine is brand-specific and not interchangable). I let the pharmacy know that I would fax them the discharge form and was assured that it would be ready in time for MP’s mom to pick it up after discharge. I worked with our interdisciplinary team to ensure that the APO-clozapine risk management form for the lab work was mostly completed, so as to minimize the community pharmacy’s work.

During our discharge meeting I discussed the above, and parents and MP felt reassured and supported as they prepared for discharge. All in all, I felt appreciated that my work would be beneficial for the family as well as the community pharmacy to provide good continuity of care.

One thought on “C3.1 R4(h): Provide continuity of care from in-hospital to outpatient setting”

I always also complete an outpatient lab requisition for patients who are newly started on clozapine in hospital. I add instructions on the lab form that it is a weekly standing order x 6 months then every 2nd week x 6 months, I also write to fax the results to the clozapine company (eg Apotex) as well as the community doctor. The lab form, the prescription and the clozapine company registration form are the 3,key things that need to be sent out on that first discharge. For patients that have already been on clozapine prior to admission … they already have a standing order at an outpt lab so the prescription and registration form are what’s needed for them.